


Illusion

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-26
Updated: 2007-07-26
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Listen to me, Lily Evans, are you listening? Severus Snape, of confusion and madness, of desperation and despair, of begging for forgiveness: of love so deep it rids the mind of sense.





	Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

_When you laugh I can’t stop laughing_

_When you grin my cheeks start grinning_

_When you smile I can’t help smiling_

_I think I must be_

_Your shadow_

_\--Your Shadow **Alix Delano**_

****

With you and I, Lily Evans, life was an illusion.

For me, you brought a new meaning to the word ‘magic’. When I was a child magic was some kind of forbidden fruit. You could look, but you could never touch: my mother was to tell me about it when I was old enough to understand. But I’d experiment. In the dead of night I’d run down to the playground where I had watched you, watched you everyday, and I’d try to jump like you did and I’d try to fly.

But I couldn’t. And you could. I, the half-blood and you the Muggle-born. Another illusion.

It took all my courage to run up to you that day, took all my courage to face you: face your power. But then, all my courage wasn’t much. I was never a Gryffindor like you were. Like he was.

And you’ll never know how much it hurt, your red-haired glare and your exit. Seven years of torture at your husband’s hands never burnt like that did. I had been so sure you’d agree, so sure you’d understand – an illusion once more.

For you, Lily Evans, were a mirage, an illusion.

Your son has seen my worst memory, Lily Evans. So I shall share with you my best.

_I am sitting in the scullery: alone, silent. My mother can be heard tiptoeing around upstairs, trying not to wake the ticking time bomb that is my father. I am tying my shoelaces._

_Loop, loop, knot, pull. Untie. Loop, look, knot, pull. Untie. Loop, loop, knot…_

_There is a knock at the door._

_And I run to open it, and there stands a girl who glows, brimful of magic, and there’s an awkward little smile on her face. She asks if I would walk with her. I shyly half-smile and agree. And I take my coat and we walk down past the edge of Spinner’s End and down towards the river. She plucks flowers from the ground and shows me how she can make them move and then we place them in the river and watch them float away. I make a remark about water-lilies. She laughs: a tinkling bell._

(That’s you, Lily Evans. An illusion even then. Do you remember us, back then? Do you remember when you used to chase me, when it was you asking me the questions, wanting to know me? Back when I was, to you, a mirage.) 

_We sit in a thicket and she asks my questions. A hundred questions. And I answer as best I can but truly, I am concentrating more on the feeling of her bony knee as it presses into my trousers and the light rushing through her hair._

_She asks me why I’m staring at her. And I blush. I know that blush from replaying the scenes a thousand times. I know that the blush makes my hair look a duller black. I know that I am as embarrassed of the blush as of what I’m blushing for. I remember everything._

_I look down and, awkwardly, reach for my laces again. Loop, loop, knot, pull. Loop, loop, knot, pull._

_A thin white hand is suddenly covering mine. I look up to the girl’s face. She smiles. I smile. She plucks another flower and makes it move. She hands it to me. I hook it into her hair._

And then her sister appeared and ruined everything. And maybe, knowing what you know, you may forgive a foolhardy young man for despising all Muggles at that moment.

And then the letters came. And you ran to see me, and we compared identical sheets of parchment. And that, for you, broke the illusion.

You ran to me on the train.

You ran to me on the boats.

You ran to me in the Hall.

We stood and waited to be Sorted.

_‘Evans, Lily!’_

_‘Good luck.’ I murmured inaudibly. You didn’t hear. I wish you had. Maybe it would have changed things._

_‘GRYFFINDOR!’_

The mirage shattered, Lily Evans. I lost you.

You didn’t run to me anymore.

Remember the pain of losing your sister, Lily Evans, of losing your family and your home and even, eventually, your husband? _You didn’t run to me anymore._

I was proud: the arrogant Slytherin. I would not run to a Muggle-born. I would not run to a Gryffindor. I would not run to you, Lily Evans.

_I ran._

You remember, don’t you, Lily Evans? I implore you to remember. I…I beg you to remember.

It was late winter. You were sat outside, watching the sunset over the frozen lake. Pensive. Your hair was speckled with snowflakes, your eyes green as the forest behind you. I held out a hand and caught a snowflake.

_I held out my arm. ‘See?’_

_You jumped. You had not known I was there. ‘Sev! You scared me.’_

_‘See?’ I repeated._

_Your face relaxed into a smile. ‘I see.’ And you held out your hand and a snowflake fell into your palm. We held them towards one another. I felt your gloved hand touch my bare fingers._

_‘You never speak to me, now.’_

_I remember a moment of confusion. A moment of silence. A moment of guilt._

_‘I had thought that it was you not speaking to me.’ I replied softly. And you took my hand in your glove and you stared into my eyes._

_‘I…’ you began, and then we both laughed, because the relief was unbearable._ But now that laughter is malicious, Lily Evans, for you redrew the illusion.

And the illusion stayed. The illusion remained there for five years. Five years of close, tense anticipation. Five years of _Sev, my best friend,_ and yet you’d kiss my cheek and brush my hand with yours and lie with your fiery, Gryffindor-red head resting on my lap.

Five years of a temptress. Five years of a dare. Five years of a beckon.

_Can you blame me, Lily Evans, for what I said?_

It was only a word. Eight letters. _Eight letters that broke the mirage._

And then two years. Two years of dirty looks and murmured _Death Eater._ Two years of broken, battered sighs. Two years of your delicate hand clasped in his Quidditch glove. Two years of kisses on the pitch and embraces in the Great Hall.

_You never noticed me staring._

The illusion, Lily Evans, the illusion!

I told him, Lily Evans. I told him what the Prophecy said. I signed your death warrant. A life for seven years. Was that fair, Lily Evans?

I begged him to spare you. I begged him, as I beg you now. _Beg for a life, beg for forgiveness._ I begged you both to understand.

_He wouldn’t listen._ Like you wouldn’t listen when I tried to make up for eight letters of my life. Like your sister wouldn’t listen when I told you about Hogwarts. Like your husband wouldn’t listen to anyone with sense.

He killed you. And it killed me.

I protect your son.

_I try._

He wouldn’t listen.

_Listen to me, Lily Evans, are you listening?_

Are you listening, Lily Evans? Or are you yet an illusion?


End file.
